Student Finance

Discover the costs of university, how to afford it and where to seek for financial support.

What is the cost of going to university?

Explore the cost of being a student at university. How much does the average student spend? what do they spend it on? This video will cover the national average spending, not the average for students at Oxford Brookes University. How much you'll spend and what you'll spend it in will depend on you, your preferences and your way of life.

How to pay for university: Repayable Support

After learning about the cost of university, it is only natural to have a quick look at how to pay for it all. Most students will not pay "out-of-pocket" for it all, but instead they will use a combination of loans, part-time work and non-repayable support. In this video, we will cover the Tuition Fee Loan and the Maintenance Loan, as the main source of Repayable Support that most students will be using at university.

How to pay for university: Non-Repayable Support

Unlike the loans, there is also support available that you would not have to pay back. This next video will cover a few of them, such as Scholarships, Bursaries, and other additional support.

Disabled Student Allowance (DSA)

The Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) provides funding to support eligible disabled students during the course of their studies. The DSA can be used for:

equipment, e.g. computer, software
specialist 1:1 study skills support, mentoring, IT training.

This video covers the application process, eligibility and what you could get.

How to pay back your student loans?

The thought of loans can be scary and uncomfortable to many, but student loans are quite different to other loans you might have heard of before. Discover how they can be different and how to pay back the loans once you finish university.

Have a chat with our finance team!

Our finance team have offered to be available to have informal chats with you to discuss anything finance related. Ask them any questions that may help ease your financial worries about university.

They will be available on Tuesday 9th May @ 12-3pm via Zoom, and you can book your appointments with them via the link below. Appointments will be first come first serve, so book your time-slot early to avoid not having any left! Each appointment will last 15 minutes.

Meeting with Finance

Have a chat with our DSA Officer!

Our DSA officer have offered to have informal chats with you during their usual DSA drop-ins from Monday - Thursday 12:30 - 1:30pm. You can find the zoom drop-in link on their website on the link below.

This would be perfect for students who believe they may be eligible for the DSA or require advice with your DSA application.

Please let the DSA officer you have joined through the Next Steps Explained programme.

Brookes DSA Site

Disability at University Guide

If you are still interested in learning more about disability at university, we will be uploading more content on this topic on the 14th June, but in the meantime, the University of Leeds has produced a great guide called: Disability at University: guidance and a glossary of terms. This is a very complete guide with all you need to know before starting university, and is definitely worth a read.

Disability at University Guide

What our students say about finances!

Watch our latest instalment of our new miniseries: Ask a Student! Where we ask some of our students questions regarding topics you have shown interest on. Hear about how they felt when it came to apply for the student loans, how much they currently spend on groceries, how they spend their loans and let them give you some advice when it comes to managing your finances.

Remember you can still ask our students questions through the form below:

Ask your questions here!

Budgeting Sheet

When it comes to budgeting, there are many methods students like to use. Some like to go old school and keep a note of expenses on paper, other will use apps such as the ones found in the section below, and others will keep track through sheets such as this one.

You can also access the sheet by using the link below.

Budgeting Sheet

Student Budget Sheet.xlsx

Useful Budgeting Apps

You can find some useful budgeting apps right here, they all have different functions and will support you in different ways. We recommend you try different budgeting methods to find what works best for you. Do now worry about getting it wrong a few times or struggling to budget as you start thinking about your own finances, that is completely normal and happens to most students as they join university.

Goodbudget

Budget Planner

Answer these questions for the change to win a £10 amazon voucher!

Answer a few multiple choice questions to enter the prize draw of 5 £10 Amazon Vouchers at the end of the Next Steps Explained project.

Remember that you can enter more than once by completing different questionnaires and quizzes.

Quiz

Next Steps:

Remember that you can still submit your questions to our Student Ambassadors, who will answer them in a video coming online soon!

You can also give us your feedback on the content of this page in the Feedback page. We'd love to hear how you felt about the content and what more we should be adding to the hub.

On the Resources page, you will find many useful links to sites such as Student Finance England, The Scholarship Hub and Student Discount pages.

You can also watch simple videos from Student Finance England that cover various topics that may be of interest to you. You can find all their videos on here:

SFE Videos

Accessing the activities on this project

All the activities are fully accessible via a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

You can use the Menu panel on the left-hand corner of the screen to get around the hub. To access the Menu on a phone, click the three bars in the top-left corner of the screen.

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